Podcast05: Comparing Parental Control Options in Windows Vista and Mac OS 10.5 Leopard

This podcast is a conversation with my brother in law, Max Divine, who recently upgraded computers in his home to Windows Vista and has been exploring the options available within the new parental control settings. We discuss his experiences with the AT&T Smart Limits parental controls system, options available in Vista’s parental controls, and how those compare with the options available in the parental controls available with Macintosh OS 10.5 Leopard. We also discuss briefly the network-level content filtering available with OpenDNS, a free web-based service. As we mention several times, technology solutions like parental controls do NOT offer a substitute for ongoing, regular communication between parents and children. If parents want to use some sort of parental controls to limit Internet access and computer use, there are a variety of choices available depending on the age of the children and other factors. While there is not a “one size fits” all solution, it is good to see both Microsoft and Apple providing more tools for parents when it comes to digital boundaries. Whatever operating system(s) you use on home computers, I recommend that everyone look into and utilize the free OpenDNS service for content filtering.


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Shownotes:

1. Windows Vista Parental Controls
2. Macintosh OS 10.5 Leopard Parental Controls
3. AT&T Smart Limits
4. OpenDNS content filtering
5. My blog post "Home Internet Content filtering needs: Solved with OpenDNS"
6. Digital Dialog Social Network

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